Percepción sobre el primer nivel de atención de la salud bucodental y accesibilidad a la odontología en el hospital "Dr. José Penna" en Bahía Blanca. / Perception about oral primary health care and accessibility to dentistry at the "dr. José penna" hospital in bahia blanca

Esta investigación aborda los problemas referidos a la Salud Bucodental de la población de Bahía Blanca en cuanto a la percepción de los pacientes sobre el Primer Nivel de Atención de la Salud y la Accesibilidad al Hospital Penna. Se encuestaron 129 pacientes, y se abordaron los siguientes aspectos: conocimiento de los Centros de Atención Primaria de la Salud (CAPS), distancia, medios de traslado, porcentaje de usuarios que concurren al Hospital en lugar del CAPS, barreras de Accesibilidad al CAPS, demora en los turnos en el Hospital. Buscamos caracterizar a los pacientes que cambian la Atención Primaria en el CAPS por el Servicio de Odontología del Hospital Penna.

Comparison of faecal techniques including FLOTAC for copromicroscopic detection of first stage larvae of Angiostrongylus vasorum.

Angiostrongylus vasorum is a metastrongylid nematode that resides in the pulmonary arteries and the right heart chambers. In dogs, infection results in respiratory, bleeding and neurological disorders and further clinical signs. In the present study, FLOTAC was evaluated for the detection of first-stage larvae (L1) of A. vasorum in canine faecal samples. This technique is based on the counting of parasitic stages (eggs, larvae, oocysts and cysts) in chambers after spinning of faecal samples onto a surface. In a first step, nine flotation solutions were evaluated using faeces of two experimentally infected dogs. Zinc sulphate (specific gravity (s.g.) 1.2) and zinc sulphate plus potassium iodomercurate (s.g. 1.45) gave good results. However, with the latter technique, the larvae were slightly deformed. Subsequently, FLOTAC, using zinc sulphate, was compared through a randomisation technique with McMaster, flotation in tube and Baermann-Wetzel technique. The mean larvae per gramme (LPG) obtained by the FLOTAC for both dogs was significantly higher (P < 0.05) than those obtained by the other three techniques (the means of the other techniques all lie below the 95% CI of the mean LPG of the FLOTAC technique). In addition, the FLOTAC results were consistent across replicates with only Poisson (or random) variation between individual replicates. The other techniques appear to be less consistent with evidence of extra-Poisson variation in at least one of the two dogs across the replicates within each technique. The FLOTAC technique may contribute to an improvement of the ability to diagnose canine lungworm infections and represent a valuable alternative for larval counting of A. vasorum in faecal samples, especially following transport or storage where there may be limited larvae viability, and larval migration techniques cannot be used.

Influence of urbanization on the epidemiology of intestinal helminths of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Dixenous helminths that depend on rodent intermediate hosts are supposed to be negatively affected by urbanization due to lower supply of rodents in urbanized environments. Prevalence rates of dixenous, non-strictly monoxenous, and monoxenous helminths in 228 red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) along a gradient of increasing urbanization were assessed by morphological parasite identification in the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Multivariate analyses for the five most prevalent helminth species or genera revealed a significant decrease of prevalence rates for the dixenous helminths Echinococcus multilocularis and Taenia spp. from the rural (52.1 and 54.3%, respectively) to the urban area (30.0 and 20.0%, respectively), but not for the monoxenous nematode Uncinaria stenocephala (overall prevalence of 78.2%) and the non-strictly monoxenous nematode Toxocara canis (overall prevalence of 44.3%). The lower prevalence of Toxascaris leonina in the urban area (8.0%) compared to the rural area (59.6%) raises the question of whether rodent paratenic hosts play a major role for the population dynamics of this species.

Prevalence and significance of gastrointestinal helminths and protozoa in South American Camelids in Switzerland.

A cross sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence and significance of endoparasitic infections in South American Camelids (SAC) in Switzerland. Qualitative and quantitative coproscopic examinations were performed in 38 farms during the grazing period. Management practices with possible interference with parasitic infections were analyzed. On the farm level prevalences of endoparasitic infections were: trichostrongyles 87%; Trichuris sp. 74%; Capillaria sp. 68%; Nematodirus battus 63%; Nematodirus sp. 53%; Dicrocoelium dendriticum 34%; Moniezia sp. 8%; Fasciola hepatica 5%; protostrongylids 5%; Eimeria macusaniensis 68%. The level of helminth egg excretion was generally low. The highest values were recorded for trichostrongyles with an average of all investigated farms of 53 eggs per gram of faeces. The mean trichostrongyle egg output was approximately three-fold in SAC on farms that also kept sheep and/or goats, although this difference was not significant (P = 0.11). Clinical trichostrongylidosis was not reported from any of the farms. The low infection level with gastrointestinal nematodes is attributed to the defaecation behaviour of the SAC depositing their faeces focally on small spots on pasture. As a consequence, pasture infectivity is largely restricted to the area adjacent to the dung piles. Dicrocoeliosis is regarded as the most relevant parasitic infection of llamas and alpacas in Switzerland causing severe clinical symptoms and death in untreated animals. Sixteen per cent of the owners regularily treated their herds against dicrocoeliosis using praziquantel at a dose of 50 mg/kg body weight orally.